Picasso
by ThingBling
Summary: Grimacing doesn't solve everything ... soft Amarant x Lani [POST-GAME SPOILERS] [Happy birthday, Kerrie!]


**Disclaimer:** Final Fantasy IX and all related characters and indicia do not belong to Lane! The plot of this fiction, however, does.  
**Summary:** Grimacing doesn't solve everything ... Amarant x Lani, Amarant/Lani POST-GAME SPOILERS Happy Birthday, Kerrie!  
**Spoilers:** Some, Post-Game  
**A/N:** HAPPY BIRTHDAY KERRIE-CHAN!! This is for you! I know you like Amarant x Lani, so... here you are. Hopefully it's not too much of a disappointment TT! My first (published XD) fanfiction in over a year, I believe. For curiosity's sake, I wonder how people will respond to this... Hope all you Amarant x Lani fans enjoy! Especially you, Kerrie. Happy birthday...

**Picasso**  
By Lane

He was not a man to surrender to just so much pain. No. Maybe if his legs had been smashed in the fall and the bones had ripped through the abundant muscle and cool-colored flesh... but even then, he would have found a way to grin (perhaps grimace) it away, and then stand in the near-overwhelming agony.  
But his legs hadn't been smashed. So he kept walking.  
Ever since he had left the play, he'd felt slightly less fulfilled than he had pretended to be when the entire collection of world-saviors had clustered together to share post-adventure tales.

"In the past two years? No, nothing has happened. Now that Zidane has returned to me – to _us_... my world can turn again..."  
"Yeah, it's a long story... maybe I'll tell you all later. What about you and Beatrix, Steiner?"  
"Stop asking about 'me and Beatrix'. 'Me and Beatrix'? NO!!! That is not a subject!! Why do you ask? Why do you torment me so!? 'Me and Beatrix'... HMPH!! 'Me and Beatrix'...!?"  
"Vivi had kids! Well, not really. They really are kinda like... I dunno, Dagger said they were called _du-pli-cates_. Isn't that right, Dagger?"  
"Duplicates. Clones. Yes, Eiko."  
"Sir Fratley and I are rebuilding Burmecia together. Perhaps our memories as well."  
"Quina want FOOD! Much good food after Necron death! Much good food after Quina become royal head cook! YUM!"  
When he had been prodded, however, all he had done was bare his teeth and dip his head away from them, hiding his hostile expression behind lanky red locks.  
They stopped prodding.

There lay an infinite stretch of abandoned road in front of him. Behind, there stood a cliff. If his legs had been smashed from the jump (which they never had been in the thousand or so landings he'd made here), he would have grinned and proceeded down the road just as he did now with flawless, athletic legs.

"What about Amarant here?"  
"Yes, Amarant, how about you? Whatcha been up to?"  
"Come on, tell us!"  
"You're always so secretive."  
_Grimace_.  
"Amarant...?"  
They stopped prodding.

He knew where he was going. He didn't know how he knew, however, or why he wanted to go there. It wasn't that he wanted to see her again. No. No, it wasn't. He didn't want to see her again for quite some time.

"Wait up!!"  
_Such a pest.  
_"Where are you going, Amarant!?"  
"Aren't _you_ going?"

He'd meant to lose her in the raucous mass of the cheering crowd, and so he did. While everyone stared, he closed his eyes. While everyone gravitated towards the stage and its long-lost performer, he casually slipped out the back entrance. There were no guards left to stop him.

"Amarant!! Amarant, where are you!? ARGH!! OUT OF THE WAY!!"

He could hear her struggling through the crowd, no doubt close to tears of annoyance with the tides of new onlookers pressing against her, blocking her path to the man she was so desperately pursuing. Her enormous bounty axe could not help her win this battle. It was one of the few she could never win.  
He couldn't wait. He had barely come with her, so why leave with her? And so he left without her. If he had felt anything because of this– hesitance, regret, shame... he had quickly cut it free of himself. In his world, only _he_ could keep himself going. The carriage of feelings, emotions, or any rebel thoughts could be his undoing.

And yet he harbored one such feeling, emotion, thought.  
He was dying because of it.

When he did reach the headstone, he was alone. Alone and happy. Alone and tired and happy.  
He had always planned to go down in a fight. He'd always thought it would be an intense scuffle, perhaps with more than one attacker. And as long as he was in fact going to die, he might as well do it with a bang – a bang that decimated everything within a five mile radius. It would be an explosion leaving nothing of its victims but blackened ruin. Blackened ruin and reverence.

And he would be dead.  
But then, there was that other option.

He had initiated so many brawls and beatings in the last six months, he had been barred from three cities. They didn't understand that he didn't mean to win. _He_ didn't even understand. He thought about it too much afterward. When he couldn't stand to think anymore, he jumped from the cliff.  
And _survived_.  
And went to the play with her trailing behind him. He didn't get it. Not until the end of the play, at least.

"What about Amarant?"  
"Yes, Amarant?"  
"Come, tell us!"  
"So secretive!"  
"Amarant!"  
"Amarant!"  
"Amarant!  
"...Amarant?"

"Where are you!?"

_Grimace_.

Silence.

_Had he really wanted them to stop...?  
__Had he really wanted her to lose...?_

When knelt by the headstone, he was still alone. When he looked up, he wasn't.

"Lani." The first words he had said since he had sworn at the peak of the cliff.  
She knelt there with him.  
"Amarant."  
They stayed there together, in the field by the headstone. How she had found him, he didn't know. Why she wanted to find him, he didn't want to know. Why it felt like his chest was smashed and the bones were skewering his heart... he pretended he didn't even know the question.  
"Whose headstone?"  
_Grimace_.  
And no silence. "Yours, huh?"  
"My worst enemy's."  
"You don't have any enemies."  
"You followed me here?"  
_Feeling, emotion, thought_.  
"...That was off-subject, but yeah. It wasn't hard, you know."  
Oh, he knew. More than he liked, he knew. Why, though?

That _she_ knew. She knew that which would be the end of him. Knew, and embraced.

"Hey, let's go kill something." She took his hand.  
_Grimace_.  
...no.  
_Grin_.

When the headstone was decimated, it didn't leave a five-mile-wide hole in Gaia. And it was alone.

**/fin**


End file.
